If you haven’t already read about why I intentionally make my life harder-check it out HERE.

Now that you understand why you should CHALLENGE yourself, I’m gonna try to convince you to challenge yourself CREATIVELY.

By that I mean, challenge yourself to actively create new things! Drawings, paintings, poems, sculptures, fancy sweaters, wooden shoes, gourmet dog treats, whatever! The point is that you are using your imagination to create something that no one has seen before, to create art.

It’s important for everyone to work on some type of art, whatever your occupation because:

Art = self expression

The more you create and explore new possibilities the better you get at expressing and understanding yourself. You bit by bit develop a larger toolbox for creating messages, getting your point across, exploring and learning about what you personally find important, and connecting with others.

2. Art = understanding and empathy

As you explore more of what is interesting and important to you-focusing on the patterns in a bird’s wing you’re painting, exploring how different glazes blend on your pottery, trying out new patterns for crochet-you express yourself and other learn to better understand other artists and people. Art is a large part of culture, it expresses your unique priorities, but can also communicate what a society deems important.

3-point perspective isn’t used as frequently as the others-but can add a lot of drama and emphasis when drawing a huge building or tree stretching off into the sky. It is similar to 2-point perspective, but the third vanishing point shows where the object dissappears into the distance above.

Step one: As always, put down your horizon line and vanishing points. Two will be on the horizon line somewhere, but the third should be above or below it.

Leave yourself lots of space between the third VP and the horizon line to make it easier.

Next, draw one line from your top vanishing point down. This will be the closest edge of your building.

Then, you can add two dots to mark the top and bottom of the building. Connect each dot to each of the vanishing points on the side.

After that, mark where you want the bottom corners of the building to be. I added little arrows. Draw a line from each spot up to the top vanishing point.

That’s basically it. Details on the side with slope upwards towards the top VP, and along each side with angle towards the VP on their respective side.

I’ve added a sketch of what it can look like with you add more surrounding buildings. And here’s a more subtle example with all three vanishing points off the page.

Those words can be used to describe both Artemisia and her art. And indeed, it seems impossible to separate the two.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a focused and passionate artist who was trained and encouraged by her artist father (one of few ways a women could receive professional training at the time) and as a teenager was known to spend most of her time devoted to painting. While her father’s support enabled her artistic education, it was her own passion and drive that lead to several unbelievable masterpieces before she even turned twenty.

Artemisia brought strength, boldness, and realism to the women in her paintings-while also bringing to light the darker realities that male artists often ignored.

One of her first well-known pieces shows “Susanna and the Elders”. Other artists portrayed the Elders as far-off and subtle peeping-toms and Susanna as an unaware beauty that they, and the artist/audience, could gaze at without consequences. Artemisia on the other hand portrayed the men shamelessly ogling Susanna, with Susanna aware, uncomfortable, and afraid. Artemisia likely drew upon her own experiences at the time of the unwanted advances and leering gazes of her painting tutor Tassi and his friend to reveal how disgusting the story, and intrusion of privacy, really was.

That unwanted attention from her painting tutor sadly didn’t stop. Tassi eventually raped Artemisia and was sued by her father. The 7-month long public court case resulted in Artemisia being literally tortured to see if her testimony was true (Tassi was unharmed),

First, you start with one dot, or point, because it’s “1-point perspective “.
You should already know that though, since you have totally all ready done the first tutorial on perspective, right?

If not, go ahead and check it out here: http://inquisitiveart.com/2017/04/07/draw-1-point-perspective-anyone-can/

No worries, I’ll wait.

Great! Now that you’re back make one dot for your vanishing point and then draw the flat tops of your objects. I did a few varied shapes for rooftops in a city (one has a pool).

No horizon line this time because you are looking straight down.

Second, connect your shape to the vanishing line and cut it off.
This should feel familiar. Just like before, make sure that the lines of the “top” edges are parallel to the “bottom” edges. Third, add details (like windows!).

The sides of the windows will angle to the vanishing point. The tops and bottoms will be parallel to each other and the top edge of the building. They will also get closer together as they get closer to the vanishing point.

Fourth, repeat those steps to add more buildings…or furniture, or whatever you’re drawing.
Fifth, erase the extra lines, and add detail to the bottom.

Any details on the bottom or rooftop size will appear flat and can be drawn normally. Like the roads and cars I added. The circular rooftop pool is another example of this.

I also added another building to demonstrate how making a building look taller is as easy as increasing the space between the top and bottom.

The sun had almost finished rising above the distant hills as we arrived at the trailhead for the Tongariro Crossing. My three companions, one friend I had been traveling with for a while and two hitchhikers we’d picked up the day before, and I soon set off on a trail I had been hearing about since arriving in New Zealand. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I bounced along the first 2 kilometers of nearly flat walking while admiring (and photographing) the gorgeous views of the mountains in the distance. Including the steep, volcanic cone we would be climbing. My gross overconfidence was quickly revealed though once we reached the actual ascents- mostly sets of uneven steps that led to more, steeper steps.

I was soon lagging behind my three, ever so patient, companions and cursing myself for making them wait as I used my hands to push down on my legs and propel my body up one step at a time.

“Why was I doing this again?”

After a blissful break that I spent guzzling water, we set off up the side trail to summit Mount Ngauruhoe (better known as Mt. Doom) which seemed like a great idea for about three minutes. Then my renewed energy suddenly flatlined. I was once again struggling to force two tired and heavy legs up a set of steps while watching my companions slowly get farther and farther ahead.

Then we reached the side of the mountain and all pretense of a path disappeared.